lookin' round rooms
by cradily
Summary: Izuku could, hypothetically speaking, fuse with anyone; he could even fuse with All Might, if the opportunity ever came up, and become part of the strongest person in the world. That doesn't change the fact that right now, even with his quirk, on his own he might as well be useless, just like Kacchan likes to say.
1. introducing:

The first time he uses his quirk, it's with his mom. It makes sense, Izuku thinks later; she's his home, a constant source of support and worry and _love_ that makes him feel braver when he's around her.

She's been crying a lot lately, though she usually tries harder to hide it from him. Her hands are steady, this time, despite the tears welling in her eyes.

The salve she's applying hurts even worse than the burns do, but Izuku tries to smile at her. He's already cried once today, curled up on the bank of the shallow pond as Kacchan walked away.

It falls flat on his face no matter how hard he tries.

Izuku doesn't understand, but _Mom_ does, must from the way she looks at him, heavy and fearful. Doesn't understand why she looks at him with such guilt, nowadays, when he's just a "late bloomer", the doctors said, weeks ago. Doesn't understand the hatred on Kacchan's face, ugly and twisted, when Izuku had reached out to help him up. The way he'd looked at Izuku like one of the worms they used to dig up for fun, just before blowing him up.

He wants to understand and he wants to make her stop crying; but he doesn't know how to do _either_ , so instead he just reaches for her, willing himself closer, and-

-and the light that flares between them is too bright, his stomach twisting in a way he's never felt before and his mom is saying "Izuku!" and he moves to protect her, because that's what heroes do-

 _-she's sorry, she's so sorry, Izuku-_

The light fades, and they blink their eyes.

A hands raises, instinctive, and they freeze. The room swims; they are assaulted, suddenly, with a sense of _wrongness_ , their gaze simultaneously _too high_ and _too low_ for comfort.

They begin to shake. Fear is beginning to make their head buzz. This is their home, they know this with a bone-deep certainty; next to them sits a stool with _one leg lower than the rest, a relic from her college days_ and the carpet below is soft under their feet, a slight stain burned into the fibers _where Kacchan had spilled juice one day and he'd promised not to tell_.

They're not _Inko/Mom_ and they're not _Izuku._ When they flex their left arm, trembling, another shifts within the same socket, flexing to match it. One has had the skin near burned off at the wrist, an identical pattern to Izuku's. Something shifts, whispers in the back of their mind.

They push themselves to their feet and nearly fall. They don't look at the tan, freckled ( _third, wrong)_ hand that clutches at the table, supporting them.

The world rolls beneath their feet when they step, center of balance

When they look up, their eyes _(only two, two eyes two legs three-)_ catch on the mirror Inko keeps hanging on the wall, and the breath leaves their lungs. They recognize the curl of their jawline, the softness of their eyes, could pick them out of a lineup of hundreds.

And suddenly, they understand.

The knowledge of _who they are_ _what this means_ leaves them staggering, a rush of too many emotions to identify humming in their chest, Izuku and Inko/Mom and whoever they are now that they've been combined, _love-fear-worry-joy-hope-_ _ **relief.**_

He has a quirk.

He spends weeks afterwards simply experimenting and recording, recalling every emotion and sensation he can from merging to when he and his mom had broken apart (defused?), interrogating her every spare second he can.

She's happy to tolerate his questions, demeanor lighter, more joyful in the wake of the reveal of his quirk. She cries less often, though she'd sobbed for what seemed like _hours_ after they'd disconnected in another flash of light, holding Izuku close.

She buys him a new notebook at his request, just for notes on his quirk. He's so excited he almost shows it to Kacchan before he remembers that Kacchan's ignoring him.

For someone who'd reacted so quickly to the idea of Izuku not having a quirk, Kacchan reacts to the revelation that he _does_ with a disappointing lack of enthusiasm. Izuku babbles about it the moment he gets to school the next day.

Kacchan looks annoyed, mostly, and tells him to shut up and draws sparks on his palms. He thinks for a few minutes when Izuku does, brow drawn low.

"How're you supposed to be a hero with a quirk like that?"

Izuku's mind staggers to a stop. He'd been so focused on the novelty of having a quirk that he'd assumed it was a given- he had a quirk, he could be a hero. Now he flounders, thinking furiously.

"I-" and he hesitates. "If I could fuse with someone strong, I could fight." _Like All Might_ , he knows better than to say.

A familiar smirk spreads Kacchan's face and dread drips in Izuku's stomach, excitement draining out and leaving behind a cold, hollow feeling.

"Who'd want someone like _you_ dragging them down?" he says, and the other kids gathered round laugh. "All the time you spend following me around, figures a leech like you would have a quirk that's as useless as you are."

Kacchan shoves at him, then, and all Izuku can do is stare, vision going blurry through tears.

"Aww, you gonna cry, Deku? Why don't you go cry to your mom, then? Since she's the only one who likes you, anyways!" More laughing, and the group moves on, settling loudly into the classroom.

He'd thought-

Well. He'd thought that it would be _enough_ , having a quirk, for Kacchan and everyone else. He'd had this idea, that once he got a quirk it would prove that he wasn't- worthless, or weak, or whatever else Kacchan called him, and they could be friends again. He was wrong, apparently, and as much as that hurts, he at least has something else he can focus on now.

Izuku wipes at his nose and resigns himself, once again, to being friendless.

Their interaction, at least, raises plenty of new questions for him to consider over the next few months. What can he do with his quirk? He devotes half of his new notebook just to theorizing on what fusing with different heroes would look like, going lightheaded with excitement several times. He nearly passes out when he gets to All Might and has to quickly move to a different hero.

If he could only figure out how to use his quirk, he could study it properly.

Physical contact isn't enough- Izuku hugs his mom, over and over, even dares to press a few fingers against the skin of another student at school when he passes Izuku a pencil. No dice.

Can he use it on someone other than his mom? He hopes so; he's never heard of a quirk that only works on a single person, so he's not too worried, but the thought festers in the back of his mind. The problem is, until he can identify exactly what drives or starts the melding process, he can't test it.

It's like he told Kacchan: if he _can_ use his quirk on anyone, he has a chance at being a hero.

A few near misses happen, which make for good data but leave Izuku nearly weeping for frustration. His mind wanders and the light fades, and whoever it was they formed last time disappears, leaving just him and his mom, fingers interlinked.

She makes him his favorite dinner on the nights when that happens, and pets his hair soothingly, eyes sympathetic and mouth full of reassurances.

"These things take time, Izuku- even All Might had to learn how to use his quirk at your age, I bet," she says.

Well, obviously, though the idea of All Might being as small as Izuku (what was All Might like as a baby _All Might_ _was a baby_ ) gives him pause.

She taps her fingers against the table on one such night, quiet and looking thoughtful. "Izuku," she says, "what exactly do you do you're trying to activate your quirk?"

"Um." He thinks about it for a second. "Mostly I just focus on how much I want it to happen, and imagine it happening…?"

Mom worries at her nails and considers him. "Well, I'm… goodness knows you've probably read more about quirks than I have, but I was researching these things a bit, recently. Have you ever heard of the 'Quirk Factor'?"

"A few times, but… the books weren't really clear about it?"

She nods, looking unsurprised. "Well, it's what allows us to use our powers, correct? It's something all of us with quirks have, and something we all use. I was thinking, Izuku, that of all the heroes I've seen and all the people I've met, none of them had quirks that just… happened."

She's speaking a little fast now, voice smoothing in the way it does when she goes into 'teacher mode'. "Our quirks are a part of us, Izuku, and your quirk is the same way. Every person has some way of controlling their quirk, a way to make it stop or start when they need it to. It's like an arm or a leg- you can't expect your quirk to happen, or your leg to move, just because you _hope_ it does."

He stares at her, mind whirling, and his mom blushes. Her smile is soft as she begins to clear the table.

"You're smart, Izuku, certainly smarter than your father and I were at your age. I know you'll figure it out." She kisses his forehead and walks away, a few dishes rising gently into the air and following her into the kitchen.

Izuku feels exceedingly dumb for the next few days and makes up for it in his fervor to do more research. Online forums (with his mom's supervision) are a goldmine, people flooding into online communities with descriptions of their quirks and the ways they've tried to control them.

More often than not the posts are clumsily written, pre-teens or young children describing accidentally breaking things or hurting other people or hurting themselves and frantically asking for advice. Sometimes they're written by a (supposedly) concerned parent, trying to find some sort of help for their child after disastrous attempts to control their quirk. They're riddled with typos and poor grammar and the occasional inappropriate question, which Mom carefully guides the page away from as Izuku covers his eyes.

They're _perfect_ , as far as Izuku is concerned, because they're from the point of view of people like _him_ , not like the books or reports written by adults who already understand their quirks.

Visualization is a common theme among the answers he finds; so is using physical triggers, like muscle flexing, though that doesn't seem very applicable to Izuku's situation.

He focuses on the light, because it always seems to appear when he comes close to using his quirk, and because it's easy to imagine. He holds his mom's hand and concentrates, picturing it: bathing his skin; forming a shield around him; being _pulled_ out of his core.

Nothing. Izuku enjoys experimenting as much as the next person, but he's beginning to get disheartened. His mom's starting to become worried too, he can tell, from the way her face scrunches up.

They're in the grocery store, one day, fingers tangled together when Izuku stumbles on it.

(Mom has been incredibly accommodating these past few weeks, working just as efficiently as ever despite Izuku constantly holding at least one of her hands hostage. He writes a note to himself in his journal to make her a _really nice_ card for Mother's Day.)

This time Izuku concentrates on his fingers, imagines the light extending from them like claws or ligaments, _reaching_ out towards his mom-

-and the light answers, this time, and reaches with him. His stomach pulls and his eyes burn, just a little for the light wrapping around the both of them and _he's done it_ -

It's just them, then, hands clenched tight on the grocery cart and the old lady nearby in the fruit section observing them curiously before moving on. (The lady herself has skin the color of mulled plums; in today's world, it's reasonable for them to assume that they're far from the oddest person she's seen, three arms and all).

They raise a hand and _oh_ , they bask for just a moment in the _pride-love-relief_ they feel, eyes fluttering closed with happiness at the dance of artificial lights and freckles across their fingers, warmth bubbling up in their chest and spilling down all five limbs.

They raise a hand and (Inko, at least, knows how to do this, even if Izuku doesn't) focus and _pull._

Granny Smith, they think, because Izuku likes the sour taste and Inko will want to make something special for tonight, apple pie for celebration-

They raise a hand, and a single apple on a nearby shelf rises, gently, and floats towards them.


	2. learning

" _Who'd want someone like you dragging them down?"_

That's the kicker, isn't it.

Izuku is small and weak and trips over his own feet more often than not, even at twelve already noticeably more scrawny than most of his middle school classmates. He flinches at loud noises, an ingrained response to years of explosions aimed at him, and he mumbles to himself, and his quirk is _weird_.

He's also a common target for Bakugou's fits, that in itself more than enough of a reason for everyone else his age to avoid him.

It's nothing Izuku isn't used to, leaving elementary school; he eats by himself and spends recess by himself, keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the teacher or the notes in front of him in class and avoids Bakugou like the plague out of it.

He's gotten better, at least, at acting like it doesn't hurt him. Izuku keeps speaking, now, when he has to present a project to the class and the room fills with muted snickers. He keeps his hands under his desk when they shake, and he doesn't flinch as strongly when Bakugou insults him, loudly, and the teacher does nothing about it.

Izuku still cries too often to be anything but pitiful, but he doesn't dare do it in front of Bakugou anymore, and that if nothing else is a victory he clings to.

More than any of that, though, he has a _quirk_ , and that's enough to keep him preoccupied most of the time.

It's not enough, though, and every day the other kids spend experimenting with their quirks that inadequacy becomes more obvious.

Heroes work in teams, usually, but the most successful heroes can fight on their own. A single look at the most popular, most lucrative heroes reveals that. All Might, Endeavor, Kamui Woods- none of them _need_ the people who support them to finish off villains. Back them into a corner and they fight their way out.

Izuku… can't do that. His quirk is entirely reliant on the presence of another person. Take that away and he's just Deku, wimpy and fearful and _useless_ , just like Bakugou likes to say.

That's unacceptable in a hero, and Izuku's going to be a hero. He needs to be smarter, faster, stronger if he wants to help other people, let alone get into UA as planned. Izuku can't afford to sit around and wait for someone to agree to fuse with him if people are in danger.

So he starts running, before school and after, first just around the neighborhood and then in longer loops around the city.

(Izuku throws up so many times. A truly ridiculous number of taste of bile in his mouth is a familiar enemy by just one week into his training regime.)

The local beach Izuku mostly avoids, because everything he's read recommends against running on the sand and also because he doesn't quite trust himself not to get hurt on all the trash littering the shore.

His mom looks at all the research he prints out and agrees to start making him healthier meals, meals heavier in proteins and vegetables, to help him put on muscle easier. When Mom asks why Izuku shows her the plan he's carefully outlined in his notebook- he has _diagrams_ and _flow-charts_ , he's actually pretty proud of it- and she looks sad, just for a little bit, before promising to help him however she can.

He's on an early run when a flyer with bold lettering catches his eye, stapled neatly to a wooden electrical post.

It's a 'Help Wanted' ad for a local garden shop, one just a few blocks down from Izuku's apartment. The owner's looking for someone young to help with 'manual labor' at a cheap wage.

Izuku can faintly recall visiting the place once or twice, Mom always making a point to chat for at least a few minutes with the one employee, an elderly woman. If she's the owner, it would make sense that she's looking for extra hands.

His mom likes to talk sometimes about planting a garden. Their apartment doesn't have a garden plot, so it's always more wistful than anything, but she does keep a couple of potted plants- herbs, he thinks- on the kitchen windowsill.

The contact strip at the bottom of the sheet tears off easily, clenched tight in Izuku's fist when he starts running again.

Mom seems to like the idea, probably because she worries about Izuku not interacting enough with other people.

"Just as long as you keep up with your schoolwork," she says and ladles more vegetables onto his plate.

"Aoki-san is a widow, you know," Mom confides quietly, after dinner. "Her and her husband ran that shop together for years before he passed away. I think it'll be good for her, having someone around to keep her company." That more than anything else convinces Izuku to drop by the next evening.

The shop is just as humid as he remembers, the air crowded with hanging vines and what Izuku thinks are fruit tree saplings. Light spills in from large windows on each wall, a heavy orange rapidly darkening as sunset approaches.

Aoki-san emerges from a back room within seconds of the door chiming, seated comfortably in a wheelchair Izuku can't recall seeing before.

She beams at the sight of him, gliding over quickly. "If it isn't the little Midoriya! You've gotten quite big, haven't you?"

Izuku tries to hide his discomfort with a smile, bending over to embrace her gingerly when she gestures at him. Aoki-san promptly crushes him, wiry arms deceptively strong around his shoulders. Izuku wheezes a little when she releases him.

"Has your mother sent you, then?"

"Ah, actually Aiko-san-"

"Such a formal young man!" she laughs. She looks him up and down, eyes strikingly sharp for her age. "You must be here about that job posting, then- let's head to the back and we can talk business, you and I."

Izuku glances back at the door reflexively. She follows his gaze and grins. "Don't worry yourself about that, dear." She pushes dark hair back purposefully to reveal a large, scalloped ear, almost like that of a mouse or rat. She winks at him.

( _Mutant-type quirk_ , Izuku writes down later, _one that amplifies hearing_.)

The backroom serves as a makeshift stockroom, a small desk crammed into the corner with a laptop and stack of papers on top. The cement floor is smeared with soil, and Aiko-san navigates it with some small difficulty.

"Suppose I should get this area cleaned up," she mutters to herself, motioning Izuku towards a chair against the wall. "Not quite as easy for me to maneuver now, is it?"

Izuku feels more than a little bit trapped when he sits, Aiko-san situating herself less than a meter away, facing him. She imparts a sense of enormous presence, looking at him with her hands folded demurely on her lap. Sturdy muscles show through the loose skin of her arms and shoulders, skin freckled and browned in a way only sunlight can manage.

There's a fair bit of interrogation that occurs, then, and Izuku attempts to answer appropriately, though his voice rattles a bit. Age, schoolwork, experience with gardening- she even inquires after the bandages wrapped around his wrists, recent burns courtesy of Bakugou, though she apologizes after he stutters through an explanation.

Finally she stops speaking and simply regards him, fingers drumming slowly on the arm of her wheelchair as Izuku tries not to fidget.

"Well," Aiko-san says, and smiles, "I think you'll do just fine." She laughs when Izuku slumps over in his chair, relieved.

"My husband…" she starts. He blinks at her. "His quirk was an interesting one; when he touched a plant, he could pick up a kind of 'energy' or 'aura' from it. He compared it to emotions, what he sensed."

Her face softens as she speaks. "He could always tell _just_ what it was that a plant needed. He made them happy, and the plants he worked with flourished like nowhere else in Japan. This shop used to be quite famous, you know."

"Anyway, Midoriya-san, something he said has stuck with me through all these years. He told me, 'Plants are like people; they're happiest when they have someone kind to take care of them'".

The light from the window has turned soft and dark, long shadows stretching across the room and Aiko-san's face. "You seem like a kind person, Midoriya-san. I think it would do the shop good, having you around."

Aiko-san sends him home with a list of information to bring back, a heavy mind, and a job.

Weeks pass quickly after that, days a constant cycle of exercise, meals, school, work, and sleep. He spends his mornings at school and his evenings in Aiko-san's shops, hauling dirt and planting pots and every garden tool imaginable.

Izuku wakes up most mornings ridiculously sore, but it's a good sort of sore, the sign of work well done. It also means he doesn't have to worry about creating his own strength-building exercises, something he'd worried about before starting. Slowly but surely it gets easier, the bags of soil becoming lighter and lighter every week.

Aiko-san makes for good company, as a bonus. She fills every silence with talk, mostly about plants, so Izuku doesn't have to.

She spends their hours together teaching him about soil, which plants need more water and which come from dry climates, how to cultivate fruit, until Izuku feels comfortable helping customers by himself when she works in the backroom.

Aiko-san talks him through moving a young sapling from one pot to another, and the feeling of roots and dirt against his skin is calming, almost ridiculously so. Izuku actually feels relaxed, now, when he comes home in the evening.

His weekends are full of running and resting, helping his mom tidy up the apartment and reading everything he can get his hands on about quirks.

Izuku starts with history; he reads first-hand accounts from doctors who had been present when quirks first emerged, the early history of heroes, and the establishment of hero-police force collaboration.

From there he works through more modern pieces: medical case studies of functionally different quirks; analyses of the Japanese political and social hierarchy in the wake of the emergence of heroes; the changing statistics of the quirk-having population over the years.

Izuku's 'Fusion' is officially listed as a transformation-type at the local Quirk Registration Office. He combs through rosters of heroes from throughout previous years, looking for any with a quirk similar to his.

Nothing. There's a fair few heroes who function by altering themselves for battle or rescue, and he sets those aside for later studying, but none that work by changing _other people._

That's leaving aside the matter of _mental_ changes, an area with very little exploration even among scientists who specialize in quirks.

Here's the (fascinating, _terrifying_ ) thing: when Mom and Izuku fuse, it's not just the two of them sharing one body, like Izuku had initially assumed.

It's someone _new_ , someone with their habits and their knowledge but very much not them.

(They like green tea, and tying their hair back so it doesn't fall in their eyes, and they decide, entirely independent of Izuku or Mom, that they like the name _Yuu_ , a family name, because going just by 'they' or 'the fusion' seems silly to them.)

That has _entirely_ too many implications for Izuku to feel comfortable with. How much responsibility does he have for the actions a fusion takes? If he fuses with someone he disagrees with, how does the fusion decide between them?

Also, does Yuu _die_ when Izuku and Mom defuse? He hyperventilates the first time he considers it until his mom calms him down.

That's- okay, fusions _probably_ don't just… die. Still, the fact that his quirk can literally create new people is something he doesn't want to think too hard about.

As if he doesn't have enough to try and write down, Izuku stumbles across something… big. (He's already mostly through one notebook dedicated just to his quirk, and resigns himself to buying another).

Mom can float her favorite teacup to herself from a maximum distance of approximately eight meters.

Yuu can do it, easily, from thirteen.

That changes things. That means that not only are other quirks retained during fusion, they're also _amplified._

That means that Bakugou was _wrong_ , about him and his quirk and the things he's capable of. Because in battle, that difference in strength could very well allow a hero to win, could save that many more lives during a rescue operation.

It's still not good enough, though.

Right now _Izuku_ is still a liability, no matter how useful his quirk might be. Still too small and still to weak to protect himself, let alone other people, still too afraid.

He wants to be a hero of his own right, not just an accessory to someone else. So he lowers his head and _works_ , pushes himself harder during his runs, starts bringing books to read for the occasional quiet nights at Aiko-san's shop, stays up late studying to make sure he near aces every class.

He endures the bullying, all the sweat and tears and vomit and most of all the _loneliness_ , because Izuku has bigger things, more important things to worry about. He has his mom, and Aiko-san, and he has his dream, and for right now that's more than enough.

It all goes to hell, of course, just after the start of his third year.


	3. acceleration

The pond his notebook fell into, unfortunately, is one that hasn't been tended to for some time; when Izuku scoops it out the pages come away covered in algae, soaked through with water and unreadable.

The water lilies look nice, at least, and the koi seem to have flourished in the absence of care. There's not much that could cheer him up right now, though.

Izuku hasn't cried in front of Bakugou in years, and that hurts almost worse than the bruises forming along his shoulders and spine from being knocked out of his chair.

His gloves are soaked through by the time he throws it away- cheap, made for gardening and bought with the extra money he earns working for Aoki-san. The sun's just beginning to droop in the sky, a sharp breeze numbing his fingers and ears as Izuku trudges his way to the shop.

Aoki-san must see in his face some of the misery he feels, because she shoos him quickly into the back room and tells him to rest.

Izuku tries to protest- he wants to _help_ , it's not fair to Aoki-san for him to laze around on the job- but she shushes him firmly.

"I've been working this shop for fifteen years on my own," she tells him, uncharacteristically gentle, "I think I can handle a few more hours."

Izuku looks at her wheelchair and wants to insist, but his eyes are still sore from crying and his back _hurts_ from the weight of his bag, and Aoki-san ushers him away before he can muster up any real resistance.

There's a tiny bathroom back here, the size of a small closet and the door tucked away behind some boxes, but the appliances work. He washes his face in the sink and looks at his eyes, still red and glassy for crying. Shame rises like bile in his throat.

The cot unfolds easily from the low shelf, a few blankets and a single pillow folded neatly nearby. Izuku curls into a ball in the middle of it all, the smell of clay and flowers tickling his nose.

His thoughts wander despite himself. He thinks about Aoki-san, laying where he is now. It's easy to imagine her spending nights here, the discomfort and cold tolerable next to the loneliness of an empty home, the absence of her husband.

Izuku's eyes begin to burn, too tender to produce more tears but trying to anyway. He shoves those thoughts away and clamps his eyelids down.

Aoki-san wakes him from dreamless, restless sleep at what must be the end of his shift. His joints are stiff when he sits up, his uniform hopelessly wrinkled and his eyes crusted at the corners.

He feels a little better for the rest, able to focus less on the events of the day and more on pulling his shoes and gloves back on, putting away the cot and everything else he'd disturbed. Aoki-san sends him away with a pat on the back, not unkindly ignoring his shaky apologies.

"Be careful on your way back, hmm? One of the regulars mentioned a villain on the loose nearby- make sure to head straight home, Midoriya-san."

Mom texted while he was asleep, saying the same thing. She's probably worried, then, since Izuku's usually quick to reply. He sends off a quick reassurance and bows one last time to Aoki-san, then hurries out.

The smell of smoke grows stronger and stronger the closer he gets to his apartment, the wailing of sirens in his ears near deafening by the time he's just a few blocks away. Mobs of people rush by, pushing their way past the main crowd that's gathered, presumably, near the source of the destruction, cell phones held aloft. A news helicopter hovers overhead, and rescue is already underway for those trapped inside burning buildings.

Sweat drips down Izuku's face as he begins nudging his way through the observing horde, shoulders ducked low and hands clenched tight on the straps of his backpack. Fear tickles the back of his mind; he doesn't _think_ Mom would leave home with a villain out and about, but if she thought he'd been attacked-

 _Boom._

His arms twitch reflexively upwards, instinct and muscle memory, to protect his face. For a brief moment before realization hits the noise is almost too much to handle, the uproar of the crowd swelling and battering at his ears.

Izuku knows that noise, that special sort of explosion, almost better than his own heartbeat, has it burned into his muscles as deep as the fear that accompanies it.

His mind clutches at this realization, feels it slip away oily and slick, the enormity of it too much to bear. The crowd shifts and there it is, a vaguely humanoid shape, a monstrous thrashing of wet limbs and white-hot explosions, and it _turns_ and rears back and there's eyes there, bulbous and alien, and below _them_ a shock of bright, pale blond hair-

Red eyes blink, unseeing and tearful and _terrified_ in his direction, and the world is nothing but white noise, whining like a lightbulb burning out, trapped inside his skull.

An elbow slams into his side as he shoves his way past, legs moving mechanically forward, forward, gaze glued to the writhing figure and _why isn't anyone helping?_

Izuku breaks free, nearly stumbles over his own feet at the sudden lack of resistance. Here he has an unobstructed view of everything and saliva floods his mouth, hot and sticky, the taste of bile a threat creeping up the back of his throat.

He's coming closer and closer to the monster, he realizes, with dawning horror. _Izuku's still moving._

The closer he comes the farther away he wants to be, legs stretching into a sprint against his will, bag thumping uncomfortably against his side. His heart will explode if it pounds any harder, pulse beating against the inside of his skull, too loud for him to hear whatever the villain roars when its eyes alight on Izuku.

Sludge drips down Bakugou's face, eyes and nose only just visible amidst the quivering folds of the villain's body. _It's in his mouth_ , Izuku realizes, and he really does throw up a little, then, vomit thin and acrid coating his tongue.

 _One chance_ , Izuku thinks. _He's got one chance_ \- and he skids to a halt on the cement, leather biting unmercilessly into the flesh of his fingers as he hauls his bag up and over his shoulder and _hurls_.

It soars, stronger and straighter than he could ever manage without pure adrenaline driving his arm, and nails the villain in the eyes, dead-center. It shrieks, flailing backwards and taking Bakugou with it, a twitching marionette being pulled this way and that by its strings.

The stench nearly sends Izuku reeling, mud and rot like the fish that washed up on the river shore in the summer, baked and decomposed simultaneously in the unforgiving sun.

His feet slip on slimy concrete and his heart stops, just for a moment before he regains his footing.

Izuku _lunges,_ forces one last burst of speed out of his legs and _reaches_ , sludge sliding wet against his skin and Bakugou's eyes locked on his.

 _Please_ , he thinks.

For the first time Izuku can feel the strain of using his quirk, a muscle he's never used flexing with all its might, stretching to encompass him and Bakugou. The light's a supernova, so bright Izuku's eyes burn, and there's nothing, then, nothing but the light and the twist in his stomach and-

 _Him_ , the taste of blood and decay and rust coating ( _his/their)_ mouth, sludge stinging his eyes, four of them, _what the FUCK-_

-and the rage, at least, is familiar to one of them, so hot it boils his blood, cracks open their bones with its force and carves a swathe through his body, anger and hatred and _terror_ sitting heavy in their gut, useless fucking _fear_ like ice rattling his limbs down to his fingers-

 _-twenty of them, that's unusual, four arms-_

- _fucking WEAKLING-_

-and they _scream_ when the villain starts to move back towards him, brief hesitation overcome and _it's coming back_ to curl in their throat, twisting joints as it suits it like he's some sort of _plaything_ as it whispers silky in their ears-

-the fear and the anger escalate, then, exponentially, raging up his chest to battle furiously in his throat, teeth rattling and he _howls,_ louder now-

-and rage _wins_ , the way it always wins for him, and the slime is on his skin now, sliding its way towards their mouth-

 _-and they_ burn.

* * *

Izuku comes to with blood in his mouth and gravel digging into his cheek. His whole body hurts like one big bruise; he tries to lift his head and lets it fall back when the muscles of his neck burn in protest.

There's noise, lots of it nearby, but it's all muffled, distant, the sound of someone speaking underwater. The ground is cool against his skin, solid and present in a way Izuku isn't sure he himself is. He fights to open his eyes and loses.

The world lurches and spins around him abruptly, collar tightening around his neck as something drags him upward. His eyelids peel away, and Izuku just has time to feel grateful when his back _slams_ into the wall next to him, air whooshing out of his lungs.

It takes- too long, probably, for his eyes to focus in front of him.

"Kacchan," he rasps unthinking, and the hand holding him in place crackles threateningly, a series of loud _pops_ that makes Izuku wince.

Bakugou has two arms, though, and the second introduces itself roughly to Izuku's throat, pinning him in place and forcing his head back, until the back of his skull rubs painfully against brick.

"You pull that shit again, Deku," Bakugou snarls, and his breath is hot on Izuku's cheeks, so close he can taste sludge and rot secondhand, "and I'll fucking _kill_ you, I'll fucking crack your skull in with my heel like the ant you are and I'll-"

Izuku can't breathe, eyes and ears going fuzzy, leaving him stuck watching the flex and stretch of Bakugou's mouth as he rages. Spittle lands on his chin. He doesn't think he's ever seen Bakugou this angry, in all the many years he's known him.

 _He would_ , Izuku thinks, and is painfully unsurprised by the revelation. _He'd kill me, if he thought I deserved it._

He's wavering on the edge of passing out when the weight as his throat eases unexpectedly. He sucks in air furiously, almost wishes he _was_ unconscious as he breaks into dragging, scraping coughs.

"Now now, that's enough of _that_ , I think," a familiar voice booms, and Izuku wheezes. A warm hand, so big it covers half of his torso, easily, settles soothingly on his back.

He forces himself to look up, throat still bucking, and stares.

Maybe Izuku _did_ die? But the heat of All Might's hand holding him up _feels_ real, and his smile, so intimately familiar to Izuku, _looks_ real, and oh, Bakugou's there too, silent and stunned where All Might's holding him back.

The world blurs rapidly after that, a rush of people and loud voices and hands tilting his head back, shining a light in his eyes as All Might holds him propped upright, the rumble of his voice a constant presence in Izuku's ears.

"Shock," he hears someone say, and that probably makes sense, at least explains why he can only stare absentmindedly as All Might fends off reporters, ushering Izuku carefully away to sit in the back of the ambulance now parked nearby.

His hands are shaking when they wrap blankets around his shoulders, eyes listing shut when he hears "Izuku!" and blinks awake to his Mom rushing towards him, tears streaming down her face.

She bundles him up in her arms and doesn't let go for what seems like hours, even after the ambulance closes up and begins to rumble away.

Bakugou's there too, and his parents, tucked so close together their conversation is like soft water, running off Izuku's ears.

"Izuku, _I was so scared_ ," Mom says, red rimming her eyes and voice muffled where it presses against his shoulder.

There's a small window back here, high enough that he can only see through it when he tilts his head back. The lights from the ambulance seem surreal, highlighting streetlights and the leaves of trees as they pass, artificial and unearthly against the dark of dusk.

"Me too," Izuku tells her, a soft, ragged whisper, and promptly bursts into tears.


End file.
